Sweatshop - A place where workers recieve little to no benefits of any kind, and often recieve physical or verbal abuse.
Defenders suggest that sweatshops give people jobs they would not otherwise have. However, the jobs are so bad that they rarely imrove their economic situation.
The Internation Labor Organization (ILC) estimates that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries, and most are forced to work. Some children that work are confined and beaten.
There are many items that come from sweatshops. These include:
- Shoes: Many types of shoes are made in sweatshops. However, sneakers and athletic shoes are a big problem. Most shoe sweatshops are found in Asian countries.
- Clothing: Very often used with child labor. The majority of these workers are women who work 60-80 hours a week. They live under extremely abusive conditions.
- Rugs: Nearly 1 million kids are illegaly employed to make hand-knotted rugs. 75% of the rug knotters are women under 14 years old.
- Toys: Made my mostly children, they recieve just 30 cents an hour on average. Especially made in countries like China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam
- Chocolate: 43% of cocoa beans come from the Ivory Coast, where intense child slavery has been found. The money that is paid to them leaves them in starvation and poverty.
- Bananas: These workers are some of the most exploited workers in the world. While working long, hard hours of the week, they are forced to be in contact with dangerous pesticides.
- Coffee: The second largest U.S. import after oil. Poor payment given to the workers also ends them in poverty and debt.
Workers will continue to work in an attempt to get enough money for their basic needs, including food.
They need to be educated about their rights.
The workers also need an opportunity to get an education for themselves and their children.
When inspectors come, they will often call ahead to arrange a visit. This will give the factories a chance to hide all of thier children away, making the place look nice, healthy, and okay.
It is very difficult to find out which companies use sweatshops and which companies do not.
A "made in USA" label does not guarentee that the workers were paid and treated well.
The U.S. Department of Labor found that 67% of garment factories in Los Angeles and 63% in New York violate minimum wage and overtime laws.
98& of garment factories in Los Angeles have safety problems dangerous enough to lead to serious health problems for their workers.
TransFair USA's "Fair Trade Certified" label, Rugmark label, and Eco-OK and Better Banana labels are all labels that let you know the product of material hasn't been made in a sweatshop.
Sweatshop Watch, As You Sow, and Co-Op America are all organizations helping to take action of sweatshops.
Boycotts can help, but only with a lot of dedication and work.
-people work in terrible conditions to make clothes and toys
-If workers try form a union they are fired or harassed
-Global economy has allowed goods from countries that allow abuse of their workers in America
-If we ended slavery, then why are sweatshops still around?
-Wal-Mart, Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor, Esprit, K-mart, Nike, Disney, GAP
-Less than $6 a day in the Philippines- shift lasts from 7am to 10pm-a few nights a week, workers must work until 2am.
-Workers get less than 87 cents an hour in China.
-They outsource their manufacturing to sub-contractors to deny claims to slave-like conditions
-If workers do not comply to the hours the are fired. Even if hours go overtime.
- Some places harass their female workers until they quit if there is a chance of pregnancy.
-they make them work the night shift, or take hours of unpaid overtime, and physically strenuous tasks and then refuse them time off for doctor visits.
- Corporations claim that they are at least providing jobs to people who have no better alternative
-choice between bad job, and no job
ALL
----
Bad
-A sweatshop is a place with very dangerous working spaces LM
-The people that work there can be exposed to dangerous chemicals, and harmful materials LM
-Barley get paid for the cost of living, low wages LM
-Can work over time but not get paid for it LM
-Sometimes get paid late or not at all LM
-Can get threatened by their managers if they do not work had enough as they would like LM
-If a woman becomes pregnant they may be forced to have an abortion so that they keep working even if they do not want to LM
-Sweatshops do not only happen in factories, they also occur in agriculture thing like farming LM
-People who are in “Agriculture Sweat shops” can be exposed to toxic pesticides, and can cause health problems LM
-Are not given adequate health care LM
-People who work in sweatshops in the US are not guaranteed legal minimum wage, or overtime LM
-Even if the tag on a shirt says “Made in the US” that does not mean that it obeys workers laws LM
-J C Penney LM
-Vietnamese employees at some sweat shops are fed a diet of rice and cabbage broth LM
-Over 90% of the employees at Daewoosa were women LM
-They were sexually harassed and abused psychically LM
- One woman lost her eye when she was attacked by a Samoan plant supervisor LM
-Walt Disney, The Gap, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Levi’s LM
-Use child laborers to up profits LM
-“U.S. sweatshops are estimated to be 60 cents per hour, in comparison to Haiti’s 30 cents per hour” LM
-“China, India and Pakistan however, have a dismal child labor record. China does not allow inspections of their facilities.”
-Sweatshops are allowed in “Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam”
-Stores like Nike, Disney, The Gap, banana republic, Old Navy, Wal-Mart, Kohls, Levi Strauss, purchase from sweatshops
-over 50% of U.S. garment factories are sweatshops
-California, New York, Dallas, Miami and Atlanta
-Act of 1938 officially prohibits sweatshops
- The U.S. government cannot enforce U.S. labor laws on U.S. companies operating abroad
-April 15, 1997, President Clinton established an agreement to try to end sweatshops
-Some companies sew a “No Sweat” label onto the clothes to guarantee that sweat shops did not make the clothes
-“Over 200 million children work in factories in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Asia”
- Factories are not ventilated
-employees can be abused
-there are almost never toilets for employees
-there are no emergency exits
-there are no doors/exits are locked
-there is not have running water for them
-companies violate minimum wage laws, sometimes they never get paid at all
-Hourly wages can go from 23cents in Pakistan, to 1.75 in Mexico
-Keeps $12.50 to cover expenses and profit
-Spends $22.50 on textiles
-Pays $15 to the contractor
-Estimated that 250 million children work in sweatshops
-Children can be abducted from their homes and forced to work.
-Some children are forced to live in the sweatshops, and are not allowed to go home to their families
-Almost all athletic shoes are made in Asian countries
-"I spend all day on my feet, working with hot vapor that usually burns my skin, and by the end of the day my arms and shoulders are in pain," a Mexican worker, Alvaro Saavedra Anzures, has told labor rights investigators. "We have to meet the quota of 1,000 pieces per day. That translates to more than a piece every minute. The quota is so high that we cannot even go to the bathroom or drink water or anything for the whole day."
-There are companies like Under the Nile, Green Karat, which are against sweatshops
50. -The only way some workers can bathe is filling a bucket with cold water -Most workers will never complain because they think they will get fired
#
**a growing problem, particularly in clothing and textiles
popular agricultural products, ( coffee, bananas, cut flowers) are grown under terrible conditions.
exist in countries around the world even US.
"The search for cheap products that can be sold for greater profit is fueling a race to the bottom where we all lose--our families, communities, farmers, workers, and the environment."
workers and child laborers rarely improve their economic situation.
"Consider the example cited in a 2003 National Labor Committee report on a Honduran worker sewing clothing for Wal-Mart at a rate of 43 cents an hour."
After daily meals and transportation to work average worker is left with around 80 cents per day to pay for other needs.
demand sweatshop free clothes where you shop
buy union made local and second hand clothing
corporate greed and global competition to produce goods at lowest price are is main reasons for sweatshops
minimize worker salaries and benefits, skimping on factory and dormitory upkeep, and demand high levels of productivity from workers.
"floors were so crowded with production materials that I could barely make my way from one end to the other"
where metals were being chemically treated, workers squatted at edge of steaming pools as if contemplating a sudden final swim
"The dormitories were filthy: the hallways were strewn with garbage—orange peels, tea leaves"
only way for anyone to bathe was to fill a bucket with cold water
"For instance, just now I learned from Wal-Mart's latest report on sourcing that only 26 percent of its audits are unannounced. By contrast, of the inspections Target conducts, 100 percent are unannounced. That's a revealing difference."
we are affected by the labor standards of our trading partners.
"But when a Chinese factory saves money by making its employees breathe hazardous fumes and, by doing so, closes down a U.S. factory that spends money on proper ventilation and masks, that's wrong." ----
**
-People believe the anti-sweatshop movements are aiming too low, they need to try harder some say
- people say sweatshop labor is equal to slavery
-The companies say they are helping by providing jobs to those who have no other options.
AN EXAMPLE
-in 1995 police raided a group of fenced apartments in California
-The arrested 8 sweatshop operators
-they freed 72 illegal Thai immigrants who had been forced to work there.
-We have had sweatshops in America since the industrial revolution
-"Sweater: employer who underpays and overworks his employees, especially a contractor for piecework in the tailoring trade."
-Sweatshop- manufacturing establishment that employs under unfair and unsanitary conditions; a business that regularly violates both safety or health and wage or child labor laws
-
-During 2001, at least 700,000 and potentially as many as 4 million men, women and children worldwide were bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions
- Slave traders: person traffickers
- Woman and children make up the majority of the victims
- Intimidation and violence to force victims to engage in sex acts or to work under conditions comparable to slavery
-some people are sold into prostitution.
- Sex tourism and other commercial sexual services
"On August 2, 1995, police officers raided a fenced compound of seven apartments in El Monte, California. They arrested eight operators of a clandestine garment sweatshop and freed 72 illegal Thai immigrants who had been forced to sew in virtual captivity. Although many sweatshops in recent years had been raided, El Monte captured national media attention and was used by U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, California State Labor Commissioner Victoria L. Bradshaw, and others to galvanize the American public into action."
seamstresses were familiar figures in early 19th-century American cities
were needed for an expanding garment industry
paid by the piece
worked 16 hours a day during the busiest seasons
shop owners would find faults with the finished garments and withhold payment
often relied on charity for their own and their families' survival
tenament houses were small apartments converted into contract shops that doubled as living quarters
competition among contractors for work and immigrants
desperate need for employment kept wages down and hours up
succumbed to disease, malnutrition, and exhaustion
never found the path from tenement sweatshop to success
"In the United States, sweatshops produce garments for the domestic market, primarily items that require short delivery times."
clothes often indistinguishable from garments produced in legal shops
range from discount houses to fashionable boutiques
changes in retail industry, growing global economy, increased reliance on contracting, and large pool of immigrant labor in the U.S lead to the respawn of sweat shops in 60's
increase in the number of Department of Labor Wage and Hour investigators from 800 to 1,000 to help stop sweatshops
1. In 1900, workers formed the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (the ILGWU) to organize against low wages and unsafe working conditions. 2. In 1909, the ILGWU organized the first garment workers strike, known as “The Great Revolt.” 3. The protest brought 60,000 New York garment workers to fight for their rights. 4. Women and children were then beaten and/or targeted with guns. 5. However, the ILGWU won, winning wage and hour standards. There was still a long fight ahead, though. 6. Children in some countries must work 14 hours a shift with no bathroom breaks. 7. Children work 6 or 7 days a week, without being paid overtime. 8. Many children are brutally beaten, threatened, and even killed by the union organizers. 9. Poverty is the main reason behind sweatshops. 10. Because of poverty, most kids have no other option but to work in a sweatshop. 11. If the children do not work in sweatshops, many turn to crime or prostitution. 12. The poor can have their lives improved by sweatshops. Without sweatshops, many would by forced to a life of prostitution, crime, or starvation. 13. The people in sweatshops can benefit the workers as consumers as well, since there are more consumer goods sold in their country. 14. Sweatshops are a cheap way to make products 15. A successful investment in a poor country will send signals to other investors, stating that there will be a stable investment environment there, which can lead to more job creation. 16. Capital investment in poor countries will cause wages to rise over time by increasing the marginal productivity of labor. 17. Sweatshops weaken the hand of American labor unions. 18. Sweatshops almost disappeared completely after World War II because of the rise of trade unions. 19. Sweatshops began to reappear again during the 80’s and 90’s because of economic globalization. 20. Over 50% of the U.S.’s garment factories are sweatshops 21. Sweatshops are found in nearly every country in the world, anywhere where there are desperate workers. 22. However, the poorer the country, the more likely sweatshops are found. 23. 90% of all sweatshop workers are women. Often, they are young women. 24. Most corporations who used sweatshops suggest that the working conditions are not their responsibility. 25. However, it is the corporations that dictate the conditions of their workers.
26. Unfortunately, not all workplaces are inspected to make sure the working conditions are well, thus making sweatshops easier to get by in America. 27. Foreign governments, desperate for economic gain, often deliberately set their national minimum wage below what it would actually take a worker to support herself and her family. 28. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 officially prohibits sweatshops. 29. President Clinton created an Apparel Industry Task Force to address the issue of sweatshops. 30. Corporations set up sweatshops in the name of “competition,” when in reality, these corporations have just too little profit!
- Sweatshop - A place where workers recieve little to no benefits of any kind, and often recieve physical or verbal abuse.
- Defenders suggest that sweatshops give people jobs they would not otherwise have. However, the jobs are so bad that they rarely imrove their economic situation.
- The Internation Labor Organization (ILC) estimates that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in developing countries, and most are forced to work. Some children that work are confined and beaten.
- There are many items that come from sweatshops. These include:
- - Shoes: Many types of shoes are made in sweatshops. However, sneakers and athletic shoes are a big problem. Most shoe sweatshops are found in Asian countries.
- - Clothing: Very often used with child labor. The majority of these workers are women who work 60-80 hours a week. They live under extremely abusive conditions.
- - Rugs: Nearly 1 million kids are illegaly employed to make hand-knotted rugs. 75% of the rug knotters are women under 14 years old.
- - Toys: Made my mostly children, they recieve just 30 cents an hour on average. Especially made in countries like China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam
- - Chocolate: 43% of cocoa beans come from the Ivory Coast, where intense child slavery has been found. The money that is paid to them leaves them in starvation and poverty.
- - Bananas: These workers are some of the most exploited workers in the world. While working long, hard hours of the week, they are forced to be in contact with dangerous pesticides.
- - Coffee: The second largest U.S. import after oil. Poor payment given to the workers also ends them in poverty and debt.
- Workers will continue to work in an attempt to get enough money for their basic needs, including food.
- They need to be educated about their rights.
- The workers also need an opportunity to get an education for themselves and their children.
- When inspectors come, they will often call ahead to arrange a visit. This will give the factories a chance to hide all of thier children away, making the place look nice, healthy, and okay.
- It is very difficult to find out which companies use sweatshops and which companies do not.
- A "made in USA" label does not guarentee that the workers were paid and treated well.
- The U.S. Department of Labor found that 67% of garment factories in Los Angeles and 63% in New York violate minimum wage and overtime laws.
- 98& of garment factories in Los Angeles have safety problems dangerous enough to lead to serious health problems for their workers.
- TransFair USA's "Fair Trade Certified" label, Rugmark label, and Eco-OK and Better Banana labels are all labels that let you know the product of material hasn't been made in a sweatshop.
- Sweatshop Watch, As You Sow, and Co-Op America are all organizations helping to take action of sweatshops.
- Boycotts can help, but only with a lot of dedication and work.
- www.veganpeace.com/index Vegan Peace
- - E.S.
- ----
http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/kids2.htm-
- What goes on
- -Lots of child labor
- -people work in terrible conditions to make clothes and toys
- -If workers try form a union they are fired or harassed
- -Global economy has allowed goods from countries that allow abuse of their workers in America
- -If we ended slavery, then why are sweatshops still around?
- -Wal-Mart, Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor, Esprit, K-mart, Nike, Disney, GAP
- -Less than $6 a day in the Philippines- shift lasts from 7am to 10pm-a few nights a week, workers must work until 2am.
- -Workers get less than 87 cents an hour in China.
- -They outsource their manufacturing to sub-contractors to deny claims to slave-like conditions
- -If workers do not comply to the hours the are fired. Even if hours go overtime.
- - Some places harass their female workers until they quit if there is a chance of pregnancy.
- -they make them work the night shift, or take hours of unpaid overtime, and physically strenuous tasks and then refuse them time off for doctor visits.
- - Corporations claim that they are at least providing jobs to people who have no better alternative
- -choice between bad job, and no job
- ALL
- ----
Bad- -A sweatshop is a place with very dangerous working spaces LM
- -The people that work there can be exposed to dangerous chemicals, and harmful materials LM
- -Barley get paid for the cost of living, low wages LM
- -Can work over time but not get paid for it LM
- -Sometimes get paid late or not at all LM
- -Can get threatened by their managers if they do not work had enough as they would like LM
- -If a woman becomes pregnant they may be forced to have an abortion so that they keep working even if they do not want to LM
- -Sweatshops do not only happen in factories, they also occur in agriculture thing like farming LM
- -People who are in “Agriculture Sweat shops” can be exposed to toxic pesticides, and can cause health problems LM
- -Are not given adequate health care LM
- -People who work in sweatshops in the US are not guaranteed legal minimum wage, or overtime LM
- -Even if the tag on a shirt says “Made in the US” that does not mean that it obeys workers laws LM
- -J C Penney LM
- -Vietnamese employees at some sweat shops are fed a diet of rice and cabbage broth LM
- -Over 90% of the employees at Daewoosa were women LM
- -They were sexually harassed and abused psychically LM
- - One woman lost her eye when she was attacked by a Samoan plant supervisor LM
- -Walt Disney, The Gap, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Levi’s LM
- -Use child laborers to up profits LM
- -“U.S. sweatshops are estimated to be 60 cents per hour, in comparison to Haiti’s 30 cents per hour” LM
- -“China, India and Pakistan however, have a dismal child labor record. China does not allow inspections of their facilities.”
- -Sweatshops are allowed in “Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam”
- -Stores like Nike, Disney, The Gap, banana republic, Old Navy, Wal-Mart, Kohls, Levi Strauss, purchase from sweatshops
- -over 50% of U.S. garment factories are sweatshops
- -California, New York, Dallas, Miami and Atlanta
- -Act of 1938 officially prohibits sweatshops
- - The U.S. government cannot enforce U.S. labor laws on U.S. companies operating abroad
- -April 15, 1997, President Clinton established an agreement to try to end sweatshops
- -Some companies sew a “No Sweat” label onto the clothes to guarantee that sweat shops did not make the clothes
- -“Over 200 million children work in factories in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Asia”
- - Factories are not ventilated
- -employees can be abused
- -there are almost never toilets for employees
- -there are no emergency exits
- -there are no doors/exits are locked
- -there is not have running water for them
- -companies violate minimum wage laws, sometimes they never get paid at all
- -Hourly wages can go from 23cents in Pakistan, to 1.75 in Mexico
- -Keeps $12.50 to cover expenses and profit
- -Spends $22.50 on textiles
- -Pays $15 to the contractor
- -Estimated that 250 million children work in sweatshops
- -Children can be abducted from their homes and forced to work.
- -Some children are forced to live in the sweatshops, and are not allowed to go home to their families
- -Almost all athletic shoes are made in Asian countries
- -"I spend all day on my feet, working with hot vapor that usually burns my skin, and by the end of the day my arms and shoulders are in pain," a Mexican worker, Alvaro Saavedra Anzures, has told labor rights investigators. "We have to meet the quota of 1,000 pieces per day. That translates to more than a piece every minute. The quota is so high that we cannot even go to the bathroom or drink water or anything for the whole day."
-
-There are companies like Under the Nile, Green Karat, which are against sweatshops50. -The only way some workers can bathe is filling a bucket with cold water
-Most workers will never complain because they think they will get fired
#
- http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070611150248AAygo5s
- http://myweb.uiowa.edu/sidel/slideshow/source/SWEATSHOP_WATCH.html
- Good
- -They price low for retails LM
- -They make a lot of money by not paying their workers LM
- http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/sweatshops.html
- http://www.humboldt.edu/~gbn2/ainger1.html
- -some people that work in sweatshops that like their jobs because it pays higher than other jobs where they live
-People that work in sweatshops may not mind their jobs because they’ve never worked differently.-For some people sweatshops are their best options
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=124264&page=1
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0804.frank.html
- ----
Joe. A- **a growing problem, particularly in clothing and textiles
- popular agricultural products, ( coffee, bananas, cut flowers) are grown under terrible conditions.
- exist in countries around the world even US.
- "The search for cheap products that can be sold for greater profit is fueling a race to the bottom where we all lose--our families, communities, farmers, workers, and the environment."
- workers and child laborers rarely improve their economic situation.
- "Consider the example cited in a 2003 National Labor Committee report on a Honduran worker sewing clothing for Wal-Mart at a rate of 43 cents an hour."
- After daily meals and transportation to work average worker is left with around 80 cents per day to pay for other needs.
- demand sweatshop free clothes where you shop
- buy union made local and second hand clothing
- corporate greed and global competition to produce goods at lowest price are is main reasons for sweatshops
- minimize worker salaries and benefits, skimping on factory and dormitory upkeep, and demand high levels of productivity from workers.
- can use boycotts
**http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/sweatshops/
- ----
Joe A.- Confessions of a Sweatshop Inspector
- T.A. Frank
- http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0804.frank.html
- **bad factory in China
- produced outdoor tables, parasols, and gazebos
- "floors were so crowded with production materials that I could barely make my way from one end to the other"
- where metals were being chemically treated, workers squatted at edge of steaming pools as if contemplating a sudden final swim
- "The dormitories were filthy: the hallways were strewn with garbage—orange peels, tea leaves"
- only way for anyone to bathe was to fill a bucket with cold water
- "For instance, just now I learned from Wal-Mart's latest report on sourcing that only 26 percent of its audits are unannounced. By contrast, of the inspections Target conducts, 100 percent are unannounced. That's a revealing difference."
- we are affected by the labor standards of our trading partners.
- "But when a Chinese factory saves money by making its employees breathe hazardous fumes and, by doing so, closes down a U.S. factory that spends money on proper ventilation and masks, that's wrong." ----
**-People believe the anti-sweatshop movements are aiming too low, they need to try harder some say
- - people say sweatshop labor is equal to slavery
- -The companies say they are helping by providing jobs to those who have no other options.
- AN EXAMPLE
- -in 1995 police raided a group of fenced apartments in California
- -The arrested 8 sweatshop operators
- -they freed 72 illegal Thai immigrants who had been forced to work there.
-
- -We have had sweatshops in America since the industrial revolution
- -"Sweater: employer who underpays and overworks his employees, especially a contractor for piecework in the tailoring trade."
- -Sweatshop- manufacturing establishment that employs under unfair and unsanitary conditions; a business that regularly violates both safety or health and wage or child labor laws
-
- -
- -During 2001, at least 700,000 and potentially as many as 4 million men, women and children worldwide were bought, sold, transported and held against their will in slave-like conditions
- - Slave traders: person traffickers
- - Woman and children make up the majority of the victims
- - Intimidation and violence to force victims to engage in sex acts or to work under conditions comparable to slavery
- -some people are sold into prostitution.
- - Sex tourism and other commercial sexual services
- - forced labor situations
- http://americanhistory.si.edu/sweatshops/intro/intro.htm
- http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1369
- http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa061202a.htm
- ALL
- ----
Joe A.1. In 1900, workers formed the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (the ILGWU) to organize against low wages and unsafe working conditions.
2. In 1909, the ILGWU organized the first garment workers strike, known as “The Great Revolt.”
3. The protest brought 60,000 New York garment workers to fight for their rights.
4. Women and children were then beaten and/or targeted with guns.
5. However, the ILGWU won, winning wage and hour standards. There was still a long fight ahead, though.
6. Children in some countries must work 14 hours a shift with no bathroom breaks.
7. Children work 6 or 7 days a week, without being paid overtime.
8. Many children are brutally beaten, threatened, and even killed by the union organizers.
9. Poverty is the main reason behind sweatshops.
10. Because of poverty, most kids have no other option but to work in a sweatshop.
11. If the children do not work in sweatshops, many turn to crime or prostitution.
12. The poor can have their lives improved by sweatshops. Without sweatshops, many would by forced to a life of prostitution, crime, or starvation.
13. The people in sweatshops can benefit the workers as consumers as well, since there are more consumer goods sold in their country.
14. Sweatshops are a cheap way to make products
15. A successful investment in a poor country will send signals to other investors, stating that there will be a stable investment environment there, which can lead to more job creation.
16. Capital investment in poor countries will cause wages to rise over time by increasing the marginal productivity of labor.
17. Sweatshops weaken the hand of American labor unions.
18. Sweatshops almost disappeared completely after World War II because of the rise of trade unions.
19. Sweatshops began to reappear again during the 80’s and 90’s because of economic globalization.
20. Over 50% of the U.S.’s garment factories are sweatshops
21. Sweatshops are found in nearly every country in the world, anywhere where there are desperate workers.
22. However, the poorer the country, the more likely sweatshops are found.
23. 90% of all sweatshop workers are women. Often, they are young women.
24. Most corporations who used sweatshops suggest that the working conditions are not their responsibility.
25. However, it is the corporations that dictate the conditions of their workers.
26. Unfortunately, not all workplaces are inspected to make sure the working conditions are well, thus making sweatshops easier to get by in America.
27. Foreign governments, desperate for economic gain, often deliberately set their national minimum wage below what it would actually take a worker to support herself and her family.
28. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 officially prohibits sweatshops.
29. President Clinton created an Apparel Industry Task Force to address the issue of sweatshops.
30. Corporations set up sweatshops in the name of “competition,” when in reality, these corporations have just too little profit!
http://www.heartsandminds.org/articles/sweat.htm
http://www.stolenchildhood.net/entry/sweatshop-the-only-option-for-third-world-children/
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http:www.mises.org/images4/sweatshop.gif&imgrefurl=http://mises.org/story/2384&usg=__tqv-H2bZdVKYUz4lrHLo0uPXacQ=&h=177&w=168&sz=23&hl=en&start=66&um=1&tbnid=GpQEsn5KT_sulM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchildren%2Bin%2Bsweatshops%26start%3D60%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN
http://feminist.org/other/sweatshops/sweatfaq.html
E.S.